The story of Mormon polygamy,
whispered first in Kirtland and Nauvoo, and variously proclaimed,
denied, and prohibited, now surfaces in a prodigious work by Todd
Compton. The result of extensive and painstaking research, In Sacred
Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, offers
heretofore unavailable biographical information on the women who were
sealed in marriage to Joseph Smith. Compton has provided this
information in a well ordered format,1
and deserves praise for an articulate and interesting resource on Joseph
Smith’s plural wives.

As with most books on
controversial subjects, readers want to know the author’s standpoint.
What exactly is the flavor of this book? Is it written from the
antagonistic, atheistic perspective of Fawn Brodie, or does it come from
a believer’s viewpoint, or somewhere in the middle? Compton volunteers
a comment on this subject, though it hardly seems helpful:

I am a practicing Mormon who
considers himself believing but who rejects absolutist elements of the
fundamentalist world view, e.g., the view of Joseph Smith as
omniscient or morally perfect or receiving revelation unmixed with
human and cultural limitations. However, I do accept non-absolutist
incursions of the supernatural into human experience. (p.629)

The ambiguity of that statement seems to me to be
more of a warning than an explanation. Given the subject matter of
polygamy, Compton’s use of the term fundamentalist is most
puzzling. Ordinarily, in the context of Mormon polygamy, the term is
synonymous with "practicing polygamist," yet in this instance
he seems to be using it in the pejorative sense of a religious extremist—a
practicing Mormon. At the same time, however, he erroneously implies
that Mormons subscribe to the idea that Joseph Smith was
"omniscient" and "morally perfect."

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The part about
"non-absolutist incursions of the supernatural" illustrates
further the need to read the book to see what he’s trying not
to say.

The Principle

Historically, Mormons have
defended Joseph Smith’s practice of plural marriage as having been
authorized and commanded by God. They believe that marriage and sexual
relations are so closely tied to spirituality that there can be no
middle ground. For them, plural marriage was a commandment from God or
Joseph Smith’s entire prophetic career is suspect. Members of the
Reorganized Church, however, didn’t seem to be hobbled by such a
conclusion. Most concluded that if Joseph Smith did it, he sinned.
Now
we see a variation of that hypothesis offered by Dr. Compton: 1) Joseph
Smith’s doctrine of plural marriage was a social experiment, not a
revelation, 2) Joseph Smith was an adulterer who, under false pretenses,
ruined the lives of many women, and 3) one can accept items 1 and 2 and still
be a believing Mormon.

The book begins with a prologue, providing Compton’s
list of Joseph Smith’s plural wives, the dates of their marriages as
well as information regarding temple proxy sealings that invariably
followed when the Nauvoo temple became available. The prologue also
offers commentary on the respective ages of Joseph’s wives, sexual
relations, ramifications of polyandry, and other ancillary issues
dealing with plural marriage. Although first mentioned in the
introduction (xiv-xv), the prologue sets the tone of the book which
consistently implies that plural marriage, rather than being commanded
by God, was a human experiment and the cause of depression, anxiety and
loneliness among the women who practiced it. This conclusion, however,
isn’t the result of comparisons with other monogamous frontier women,
it is merely the premise of the book offered from a feminist
perspective. As evidence of the emotional trauma inflicted upon
polygamous women, Compton cites Annie Clark Tanner, a polygamous wife
who wrote that her husband abdicated his responsibilities to

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provide for
her and told her to seek support from her grown sons. Compton offers her
complaint, that to her, Mr. Tanner seemed to be less of a husband and
"more like a guest." While this clearly illustrates that Annie
was denied reasonable expectations from her marriage, the context of her
situation is hardly representative of a typical plural marriage.
Annie Tanner wrote this in 1913. She was the second wife of a man who
married three of his five wives after the manifesto.2
Joseph Tanner married all his plural wives between 1883 and 1904, at the
height of public outrage against polygamy, when polygamists faced
imprisonment if they visited or supported their plural families. Certainly Annie Clark Tanner experienced loneliness and feelings of
abandonment; but it hardly seems reasonable to offer her experience as
typical of plural marriage as established by Joseph Smith.

I was most disappointed by the
naturalistic presentation of the data, both in the prologue and the
individual biographies. The fact that plural marriage was first and
foremost a principle of religion seems to have been lost to discussions
of polyandry, "sexual attraction" and the dangers of
"jealous husbands." (p.3). Although Compton includes familiar
stories that have tended to emphasize the religious aspects of plural
marriage, he dilutes this information with personal speculation that
constantly questions the propriety of Joseph Smith’s actions and
suggests that this doctrine was founded in Joseph Smith’s fertile mind
rather than in revelation from God. His comments and biographies come
peppered with subjective comments that continually remind readers that
LDS plural marriage "probably" had some other source than
revelation. However, one need not necessarily be a believer in Joseph
Smith to also believe that he was not motivated by lust. George Bernard
Shaw offered his opinion that Joseph Smith was nothing less than
devoutly religious in his attempt to implement plural marriage among
equally devout followers:

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Now nothing can be more
idle, nothing more frivolous, than to imagine that this polygamy had
anything to do with personal licentiousness. If Joseph Smith had
proposed to the Latter-day Saints that they should live licentious
lives, they would have rushed on him and probably anticipated their
pious neighbors who presently shot him.3

Compton minimizes or dismisses or denies the
religious foundation that undergirded the practice of plural marriage,
and this allows him to offer revisionist claims that might otherwise not
merit consideration. For example, Compton offers William Marks’ 1853
recollection that Joseph Smith tried to distance himself from plural
marriage, concluding that if he weren’t able to stop the practice, the
Church would be ruined and the saints expelled from the United States.
Even though Compton cautions that this recollection is seen through RLDS
lenses, its inclusion says much more than Compton’s introductory
comment. He claims that Marks’ account "suggest[s] …that Smith
came to have doubts about polygamy before his death." Marks does
far more than suggest that Smith had doubts, he asserts that
Joseph Smith unequivocally stated that plural marriage was a curse
and that he himself had been deceived in allowing its practice.
The fact that Compton soft pedals this devastating condemnation of
Joseph Smith’s character is only secondary to the fact that Marks’
claims simply do not hold up to historical inspection.

Marks’ recollection implies that plural marriage
in the Church had acquired a life of its own, over which Joseph Smith
had no control. In reality, as Church president, Joseph Smith exercised
absolute control over the sealing power before his death and Brigham
Young continued that practice afterwards.4

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Polyandry

The most difficult position for LDS people to
accept is the idea that Joseph Smith engaged in full polyandry—and
Compton emphasizes this claim at every opportunity. Polyandry refers to
a woman living with more than one concurrent husband; and polyandry is
the primary and consistent theme of this book. While it is true that
Joseph Smith was sealed to women who had currently living husbands,
there is no evidence that this resulted in simultaneous sexual partners.
Yet, in the biographical sketches, Compton repeatedly affirms that these
sealings were tantamount to marriage in every respect, pointing out that
at Joseph’s death, plural wives were all widows even though
they had living husbands at the time. This consistent emphasis upon
polyandry and its salacious overtones has made this book the darling of
anti-Mormons and assured it a prominent place in their bookstores.
The
claim of de facto polyandry as opposed to theological polyandry—sealing
for eternity without earthly cohabitation—relies mostly upon guilt by
association. That is, since Joseph Smith cohabited with some wives,
Compton concludes it’s likely that he cohabited with others
even if they were married to other men at the time.

In discussing polyandry, LDS leaders have claimed
that Joseph Smith was sealed to other men’s wives for eternity, rather
than for time and eternity.5 Compton
disallows this as implausible, noting "there are no known instances
of marriages for ‘eternity only’ in the 19th
century." (p. 14). While specific instances may not be available,
Joseph F. Smith, in his testimony before the senatorial committee
investigating Reed Smoot, said that he was personally aware of such
marriages occurring until about 20 years previous:

Mr. TAYLER. Living persons have been united for
eternity, have they not?
Mr. SMITH. I think there have been some few cases of that kind.

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Mr. VANCOTT. To what
time, Mr. Tayler, do you limit your question?
Mr. TAYLER. I was going to ask him. How recently have you known that
kind of a marriage?
Mr. SMITH. Not very recently.
Mr. TAYLER. Do you mean five years or twenty-five years?
Mr. SMITH. Oh, twenty years or more.6

Joseph F.
Smith’s
testimony in this regard is important in another aspect, for he stated
unequivocally, that sealings for eternity did not allow for earthly
cohabitation. After Smith saying that it was possible to be sealed for
time, time and eternity, or only for eternity, the committee chairman
asked about the possible rights of cohabitation between those sealed
only for eternity:

The CHAIRMAN. According to the doctrines of your
church, did that carry with it the right of earthly cohabitation?
Mr. SMITH. It was not so understood.
The CHAIRMAN. Then, what is your—
Mr. SMITH. It does not carry that right.7

Since such a marriage did not carry rights
of cohabitation in 1904, it is plausible that Joseph F. Smith was simply
describing a policy that had been in place since the days of Nauvoo.
Evidence that this was also the policy in Nauvoo is found in the one
historical document, largely ignored by Compton, specifying the
parameters of plural marriage: the 132nd section of the
Doctrine and Covenants. This document came as the revelation
explaining and approving plural marriage, in an effort to justify Joseph
Smith’s actions and convince doubters. If his actions included
polyandry, it seems very strange that the revelation does not address
that concept.

The sealing of other men’s wives to Joseph Smith
might have served the same purpose of sealing children to their parents.
Although Compton points out in his notes that "[m]arriage, sealing
and adoption, in fact, were nearly interchangeable concepts" (p.
637), this seems to be much too important to be relegated to, or lost in
a footnote.

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Sealings and Adoption

Subsequent Church leaders struggled with the
practical application of the concepts of sealing and adoption at a time
when practically all adult members of the Church were first generation
Mormons. Joseph Smith’s teachings emphasized that everyone needed to
be sealed, in order to complete an eternal chain:

The first thing you do, go and seal on
earth your sons and daughters unto yourself, and yourself unto your
fathers in eternal glory, and go ahead, and not go back, but use a
little wisdom, and seal all you can…8

Many early Mormons had living parents and spouses
who weren’t members of the Church, and consequently weren’t eligible
for sealing blessings. The obvious solution for those needing sealing
blessings would have been to arrange to be sealed to someone likely to
attain exaltation—such as Joseph Smith. Thus commenced a policy
referred to as the "law of adoption" whereby faithful members
would be sealed to Joseph Smith or other church leaders. In succeeding
years, members were encouraged by Wilford Woodruff to be sealed to their
own ancestors as far as they could find them and then to seal those
individuals to Joseph Smith:

We want the Latter-day Saints from
this time to trace their genealogies as far as they can, and to be
sealed to their fathers and mothers. Have children sealed to their
parents, and run this chain through as far as you can get it. When you
get to the end, let the last man be adopted to Joseph Smith, who
stands at the head of the dispensation..9

With Joseph Smith standing in the position as the
last link of the chain, it shouldn’t be surprising that many women
were sealed to him, including women who were civilly married to other
men.

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Compton dismisses the idea that Joseph’s
polyandrous marriages were most likely for "eternity" rather
than for "time and eternity" because the language of the
ceremonies included "time and eternity." This may have
resulted simply from the perception that a woman needed to be sealed for
time before she could be sealed for eternity—and that sealing for time
apparently, didn’t constitute an earthly marriage.

When church leaders implemented ordinance work in
the Nauvoo temple, they repeated the sealing ceremonies that had been
performed before the temple was available. In every instance, a woman
was first sealed for time before being sealed to Joseph Smith for
eternity. Where the woman had a living husband who was not LDS, she was
sealed for time to another individual, but that did not
constitute a marriage allowing cohabitation. For example, Mary Elizabeth
Rollins Lightner had a non-Mormon husband with whom she lived throughout
her life. In the temple, she was sealed to Brigham Young for
"time" before being sealed to Joseph Smith. She never lived
with Brigham Young and the intent of her sealing with him seems merely
to have been to qualify for the eternal sealing.

In the prologue, Compton suggests that Joseph’s
marriages crossed over the line of propriety. He claims that Joseph
Smith’s marriage to Helen Mar Kimball included sexual relations, even
though this relies solely upon a hostile source: Catherine Lewis.
Compton notes that Lewis’ other assertions are obviously suspect, but
allows that this most damaging claim has some basis in fact. There is
reason to doubt that Joseph’s marriage to Helen Kimball included
sexual intimacy. We know that marriages of young girls during Utah’s
polygamous years were performed with the understanding that cohabitation
would be postponed until the girl had arrived at a suitable,
marriageable age.10 For
example, in Nauvoo, Brigham Young sealed a 14 year old girl to William
Smith, emphasizing in the record that she was still Miss Rice.11

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Compton offers evidence that Joseph
Smith fathered a child with the married Sylvia Sessions Lyon. That
evidence includes a signed statement in 1915, by Josephine Fisher that
her mother [Sylvia] told her on her deathbed that she [Josephine] was
the daughter of Joseph Smith. Additionally, Compton offers a third or
fourth hand recollection of Salt Lake Stake President Angus Cannon where
he claims "it was said" that Josephine’s grandmother [Patty
Sessions] made the same claim and that Brigham Young "refer[red] to
the report." My own skeptical nature urges me to ask if any of
these statements really carries the weight of documentary
evidence? The nebulous "it was said" doesn’t directly
attribute the comment to Patty Sessions, nor does the fact that Brigham
Young might have referred to the report strengthen its case. Young could
have referred to the report by either validating it or asking, "She
said what?" We simply aren’t told that Josephine’s
grandmother specifically made the claim or that Brigham Young validated
it. Susa Young Gates indicated that her father wasn’t aware of such a
child when she wrote that her father and the other apostles were
especially grieved that Joseph did not have any issue in the Church.12

Readers should be cautioned about the book’s
doctrinal deficiencies. Compton’s perspective seems to be awfully
rigid and in many respects alien to mainstream LDS thought. For example,
Compton often refers to Mormon (historic and current) belief in
"omniscient" (p. 629) or "infallible" (p. 23)
leaders. These concepts seem to be caricatures based upon a view of
Mormonism from without rather than from within. Mormons have long
recognized that their leaders are mortal, fallible men with faults and
limitations. Joseph Smith taught clearly that a prophet wasn’t always
a prophet13 and explained: "I
never told you I was perfect; but there is no error in the revelations
which I have taught."14

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Conclusion

In Sacred Loneliness
takes exception to
that claim by allowing that there was indeed, error in the revelation on
plural marriage. The followers of the Reorganized Church rejected this
principle as gross immorality, concluding that Joseph’s involvement in
it disqualified him from further prophetic leadership. In Sacred
Loneliness agrees with the idea that the revelation was false, but
it implies that those who participated in this "experiment"
somehow retained favor with God. That premise has been rejected by
Latter-day Saints since the days of Joseph Smith—for it suggests that
sexual immorality isn’t really that bad. It disparages the
prophets and apostles who taught plural marriage, as well as the devout
men and women who believed, defended, and practiced this principle for
over seventy years. It strikes at the very foundation of Mormonism by
suggesting that Joseph Smith and his successors—God’s appointed
leaders—were capable of institutionalizing licentiousness under the
guise of piety. Readers, therefore, should be cautioned that the premise
of this book is inimical to the Mormon concept that its leaders are holy
men whose lives have qualified them to act in the name of God.

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Endnotes:

1.
With
the notable exception of Compton’s method of referencing his
sources. It is very difficult to determine what he has referenced
and what he has not referenced.

3.
Shaw,
Bernard. The Future of Political Science in America. An Address
by Mr. Shaw to the Academy of Political Science at the Metropolitan
Opera House. New York, on the 11th of April, 1933. (Dodd,
Mead and Company, 1933) as cited in Vetterli, Richard. Mormonism
Americanism and Politics. Salt Lake City, Ensign Publishing
pp. 461-462.

4.
Aug.
10th 1845 Letter of Brigham Young to William Smith, RLDS Archives.

5.
"It
is also possible, though the Church does not now permit it, to seal two
living persons for eternity only, with no association on
earth." (John A. Widtsoe, Joseph Smith Seeker After Truth
Prophet of God, SLC, Deseret News Press. 1951, p.234)

6.
Proceedings
before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States
Senate in the Matter of The Protests Against the Right of Honorable Reed
Smoot, a Senator From the State of Utah, to Hold His Seat. Washington:
Government Printing Office 1904 Volume I. p. 185